


Waiting for a Miracle

by bookjunkiecat



Series: Longings [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Despair, Drinking, F/M, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 18:19:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9001417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookjunkiecat/pseuds/bookjunkiecat
Summary: Poor John is not doing so well...only to be expected when your world has fallen apart.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hope this isn't too grim, it does get better. And we all know what's to come for John, so smile!

          Nothing quite spoils the mood like waking from a nightmare a screaming, sweating wreck. Sobbing in your sleep’s no good either.

          John hadn’t had many sexual encounters since Sherlock—since Sherlock. Since The Day.

          That’s how he thought of it, The Day. Not that he thought about it really. Or rather, he tried not to think about it consciously, but found himself brooding on it all the time. The scene played itself over and over in his mind, viciously repeating the same horrible moment.

          John found himself drinking quite a bit more than was his custom. He had nothing against drink, but after growing up with an alcoholic, combative father, and seeing how drinking was ruining Harry’s life, John usually took it slow.

          Not so nowadays. A couple of pints chipped away at the edges of the sadness; the occasional whiskey masked the lingering taste of bitterness. Ella had cautioned him that his drinking was increasing; and that as a physician he knew the dangers of over-indulging when there was a family history of alcohol abuse. “You know as well as I do, John, that alcohol is a depressant, and quite frankly the last thing you need right now.”

          He stopped going to see her after that.

          At first, Greg would join him for a session in the pub, but he tried too hard to cheer John up. John didn’t want to cheer up. John wanted to forget. Besides, there was a thin wedge of bitterness that had forced its way into their friendship; it widened the cracks, pulling them apart, away from one another. John thought Greg should have known better than to doubt Sherlock. He should have fought harder to clear his name.

          He stopped drinking with Greg. Stopped taking his calls.

          Mrs. Hudson had been devastated, of course; sometimes John thought there was at least one person who understood something of what he felt. She wasn’t a maternal woman, but she had coddled Sherlock to a certain extent. He heard her weeping sometimes.

          Before he moved out of 221B.

          At first he hadn’t wanted to leave; staying seemed like a fragile connection to Sherlock. But it got harder and harder to come home. He found himself avoiding the flat, avoiding Mrs. Hudson. He did go out to the cemetery with her, after she called in to say the family had put up a stone.  She missed Sherlock, but it became clear that she had moved on; she got a bit stroppy about past offenses. He couldn’t be angry with Sherlock.

          And that was the problem. He was angry. So goddamned angry and hurt and furious and helpless. How the hell was he supposed to deal with being left behind? His best friend was gone. Dead. Obliterated by a pavement. So who was he to feel overwhelmed with rage? Anger wouldn’t bring back Sherlock Holmes. John Watson needed a miracle.

          Nothing John did or said, no amount of alcohol, no length of time…all the distance in the world, none of it was going to change that.

          He decided he needed a change. To get away, try and remove himself from all the daily reminders.

          He took a job at a new clinic, rented a bed-sit across town, and stopped drinking quite so much (mostly because his money was running out).

          He stopped calling Mrs. Hudson. It made him feel a right ass, but he couldn’t bear to go back now that he had escaped.

          Things were okay. Life was…dull. The room he rented was painted taupe, the rug was burgundy. But for all he took notice, the whole place might have been colorless and gray. That’s how he felt, sitting day after day in his room. He had sworn off drinking for a bit, and after his shifts…he just sat.

          Things got better after Mary Morstan came to work.

          She was a new part-time nurse, who filled in as receptionist and file clerk. The office manager, Leonard, introduced him to her and for once John took notice of his co-workers. He couldn’t help but do. Mary had platinum-dyed hair that should have looked hard and brassy but instead looked charming and soft on her. Normally she wore her hair up, but on a few occasions she wore it down, and he noticed it smelled like vanilla and something spicy. Her big eyes were so expressive, so capable of brimming with laughter, of scanning his face and intuiting his mood, that he felt seen in a way he hadn’t in ages. Five months and four days, to be precise.

          She smiled when she saw him, winked when she ushered patients into his small exam room. Greeted him breezily when he trundled in to work. It wasn’t that she was falsely happy; she just seemed light, easy. But there was mystery and womanly wile, to her as well. John was fascinated.

          The day he came to work and she had cut her hair short, he asked her out.

         

******

 

          It isn’t easy to explain to someone else why you love a person. Sometimes it’s just the way they make you feel when you’re around them. How things that would annoy the piss out of you with anyone else seem charming. That being with them leaves you with a feeling of relief, of lightness and safety (safety? How odd) and warmth and you can’t imagine not being with them.

          John decided not to examine his feelings too closely. He loved Mary. He was fairly sure she felt the same, or was growing in that direction.

          But they hadn’t slept together.

          He was afraid. She would expect him to spend the night. The idea of waking in terror, or worse yet, in tears, in front of her, left him ice cold inside.

          It wasn’t that Mary wouldn’t understand. She would. Just…he didn’t want to be weak in front of her.

          The problem was taken from him one night about four months after they had begun dating. She invited him to her flat for dinner, and after, they curled up on the couch to watch a movie. Only it had been a long day and John fell asleep. He didn’t realize that he was so tired, and it happened so suddenly that he didn’t have time to be aware of what was happening. The first he knew of it was when he came out of a nightmare (a hideous mix of Afghanistan and The Day) swinging.

          Mary caught his fist in her hand, grappled with him, calling his name firmly. She didn’t sound scared, but then she worked in a fairly grotty part of town. John jerked away from her and pressed himself back against the sofa cushions, heart racing as madly as if he had just run flat out from danger.

          Mary sat down next to him and took his hands firmly in hers, “Alright John, why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

          And he did. He told her everything. Afghanistan, the wounds he had received there; coming home, fighting with Harry; the PTSD, the contemplation of suicide, Ella, Mike, Sherlock, the whole mad mess. He told her about Sherlock’s jump, the dark mire he had waded through after; his drinking, his bitter loneliness. She listened silently, knees drawn up to her chest, big eyes fixed on him steadfastly. He drew courage from her lack of shock, from her silent empathy. Impossibly, he knew she understood how he felt.

          They talked for a long time; mostly it was John. Unreal how much better he felt now that he was opening himself up. All the ugly, squirming things that had festered in his heart were exposed to the light, and he fancied they were shriveling up and dying.

          Exhausted, he finally ran out of words. Mary led him to the bedroom and they undressed and crawled under the covers. Nothing happened that night. Just the first night of good sleep he’d had in ages. John knew from experience that the flashbacks and nightmares and cold terror sweats weren’t over…but he felt like he could face them now.

          In the morning he woke before Mary and lay watching her sleep. Hair matted and sticking up on one side, creases from the pillow on her cheek, dark shadows under her eyes because of the late night. She was lovely. _I’m going to marry her_ , he thought with a sense of surprise. He had no idea where the notion had come from; he’d never before thought of marriage. _It’s too soon to ask now, but yeah, I’m going to marry this woman._ Time to grow up and move on; he was done waiting for miracles.

         


End file.
